Monthly Archives: March 2013

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The last big title update for the XBox version of minecraft finally rendered my trusty sand generator I made last year useless.

Enter the sand generator MkII! This is a bit more complicated than the MkI and is a little bit slower but by the end of the video it has made more than two stacks of sand which is a decent return. Besides it looks cool and because it’s now fully automated I can go and do something else while it whirrs away!

This is a very quick video of a “Hobbit Hole” type of house I’ve built in minecraft. It has a small garden in the front and a cozy fireplace with sleeping area inside. You could easily adapt it to be the entrance to a mine or cave system if wanted.

This is an inside & out tour of a “Swiss Chalet” style house I’ve just built on a new world in Minecraft. You can also see an arch bridge I’ve constructed over a river so I have easy access to my Nether portal. The house has a good sized kitchen area full of ovens for smelting various blocks and a cosy library in the attic complete with Enchantment Table.

This is a video tour of my “Epic” mineshaft that goes right down to bedrock. Why did I build it? Because I could! I was off work ill and didn’t feel like doing much so I just dug, and dug and dug! This was created in survival mode (not creative) and involved the excavation of around 18,000 blocks, the clearing of many monster infested caves, 2 dungeons, a massive lava pool and the wearing out of well over 100 stone pickaxes!

Before I started building it I made sure it was digging in a “slime chunk” by using this nifty slime finder site. As you can see I was rewarded with slimes spawning at the bottom and I can actually see them from the surface – no more spelunking for slimes when I need to make some sticky pistons!

The latest update to the XBox version of minecraft brought with it the ability to breed animals so of course I had to build myself a small farm and have a go! You can breed most of the animals by feeding them wheat but the chickens need grass seeds to get into “love mode”.

This is a new “modern” style house I’ve built in minecraft. I like to call it my holiday home as it’s got lovely views across a river and beach over to a desert biome. It’s actually constructed from snow blocks which helps give it the modern look. Of course I could have used white wool but that has a distinctive texture which I didn’t want. The glass blocks that form part of the roof and the expansive windows give it a light airy feel, especially when the sun pours through during the daytime.

I’ve personally not seen that many thunderstorms whilst playing Minecraft but did catch this one whilst I was recording something else. The surround sound works well during the storms so when you see me spinning the camera around it’s usually because I’ve heard a clap of thunder behind me and I’m trying to catch the lightning bolt!